“If everyone who had some reason to kill really did kill, the ground would be strewn with bodies.”

Both The Murdered Bankerand The Hotel of the Three Rosesfeature Augusto de Angelis’s series character Inspector De Vincenzi, and now with the release of The Mystery of the Three Orchidsfrom Pushkin Vertigo, we have a third book in the series. Many of the titles in the Pushkin Vertigo line are outstanding: Vertigo, The Wicked Go To Hell, Bird in a Cage, She Who Was No More, and The Disappearance of Signora Giulia are highly recommended for any crime fiction lover who’s looking for titles that push the genre. That brings me to the De Vincenzi novels, the stack on the left of the Pushkin Vertigo titles; these books are much more standard police procedurals. I wasn’t wowed by either of the two earlier novels, but The Mystery of the Three Orchidspicks up the pace, and is the best of the three so far

The focus in The Mystery of the Orchids is a fashion house in Milan. On the day that American ex-pat Cristiana O’Brien, a woman with a “magnificent body,” shows her spring collection to “Milan’s very best clients, the richest–truly the ideal clients for a great fashion house,”a body turns up on Cristiana’s bed. The body is Valerio, a young man Cristiana met in Naples, now employed as a “loyal drudge, the slave she used for everything.” Cristiana is shocked by the body, but after all, she had no sentimental attachment to the victim. What does terrify her, however, is the sight of an orchid–a flower she detests–left in her room.

The device of an anonymous letter (which appeared in The Hotel of the Three Roses--it was an anonymous phone call in The Murdered Banker) appears here in order to move along the plot. Soon Inspector De Vincenzi is on the scene to solve the crime, but the body (and the orchid) count rises. The Inspector certainly doesn’t investigate in any sort of formal fashion. He takes a wait-and-see attitude with an emphasis on “psychological clues.” To De Vincenzi, “only someone who knew how to read the murderer’s soul could unmask them.” Of course with this sort of approach to criminal investigation, readers know to expect that De Vincenzi will unmask the criminal, dramatically, at the end of the novel rather than methodically pursuing clues. While De Vincenzi can hardly be accused of being obsessive about catching his murderer (I’m not convinced he’s a very good detective,) in this novel, the inspector becomes a more interesting character.

When it came down to it he was sentimental, and he had an instinctive respect for the dead, for scoundrels who’d once been alive.

The author peppers the story with some colourful characters, including a bitchy model and an idiosyncratic dress designer. There’s also a very cinematic scene involving a room full of headless dressmaker dummies. While De Vincenzi believes that “lying and distraction come easily to women: their deviousness is automatic” he takes an instant liking to Evelina, Cristiana’s heavy-set book-keeper. He decides “you can’t weigh more than a hundred kilos without having a correspondingly light conscience.” Prospero O’Lary, Cristiana’s director is described by De Vincenzi as a “black tortoise ill with meningitis.”

No one in the fashion house is what they seem, and the plot’s emphasis is American gangsterism at play in Milan. De Vincenzi is a reader, a fan of Anatole France, but he’s also read Persons in Hiding “written by the head of the G-men, J. Edgar Hoover,” an invaluable resource as it turns out. Author de Angelis may show American crime as tainting Milan society, but there’s also a sneaking feeling that the introduction of American gangsters into Italian life is a bit of a thrill.

The de Angelis books do sound more conventional than some of the other Pushkin Vertigo titles. I would put the Jonathan Ames in that category too in spite of its impact. I wonder how they decide which authors to pursue in more depth – maybe it’s a case of availability and publishing rights? I keep hoping for another Chiara or two as The Disappearance of Signora Giulia was excellent, one of my faves so far.

They’re deeply conventional, but I suspect you’re right that they hope to hook readers on de Angelis as well as Dard. I guess Zweig only wrote so many books…

I need to write up Three Roses myself. I preferred it to Banker but I’m glad to hear this is better. It’s interesting you query how good a detective De Vincenzi is. I’ve had similar doubts, which isn’t to de Angelis’ credit since I suspect we’re not supposed to wonder that.

They’re basically Christie in Italy. Fun but a bit forgettable. I’ll still probably read this one though, partly as you say it’s the best yet and partly because sometimes fun but a bit forgettable is what one wants.

Forgot to say, he does seem to be overusing this device of having an anonymous tip-off. Does this one also include an incredibly portentous early bit where De Vincenzi and others talk about how horrible it all is before it all turns out ultimately to be a complex but otherwise prosaic murder?

Funny you should ask that. There are a couple of places where you can tell the author is starting to do that (I can’t quote from memory), and perhaps these occasions wouldn’t be so obvious if they hadn’t been so glaring in the first book. But then you can feel the author reeling himself in.